


Wire Figures

by FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Trailer, Both of us, Gen, Help, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, Loneliness, Me and Tony, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Prompt Fill, So much angst, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Trapped, We both need hugs, like a lot, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 03:30:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17635184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls/pseuds/FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls
Summary: Tony would have liked to see them again.Six tiny wire figures lay abandoned on the floor of a spaceship drifting out of time.





	Wire Figures

**Author's Note:**

> LOOK! I WROTE! SOMETHING! SHORT!  
> That never happens...
> 
> Anyway, blame this on QueenOfAngst and Febuwhump (I'm a day late I know). It was a dare. "Trapped" was the only prompt I got and here we are.
> 
> You're welcome to dare me, too, if you want.
> 
> Enjoy!

It’s his first nebula, even after nine sleep-cycles. He won’t call them days, despite having calibrated the time display to match Earth-hours. Without his sun, he doesn’t think they can be days at all. His days and nights were never very even, anyway, and it seems like somewhat of a hypocritical betrayal to try and justify their existence now.

So he sleeps. And he wakes. And he rations and he thinks and he tries to think and he tries to remember and he hates to remember. 

Everything had been blackness, for a long, long time. Too long. Sometimes, he’d see pinpricks of far off star-systems, more like lights shining through an inky sheet than bulbs hanging afront one. 

He’s been watching the cloud approach for hours, a star turning larger as he grew closer. The speed of the ship is incomprehensible, even with the waning fuel and the desperate need for maintenance--he can only do so much with the resources he has. 

He leans forward against his knees, pressing a hand to the reinforced glass of the cockpit, as blue and pink light bounces into view around him. It swirls into almost concentric circles, transposed across the sky and capturing the light of the stars behind it. He thinks it looks like he’s seeing through the eye of a celestial beast, a nebula turned cornea, star nursery turned pupil. Clouds of dust billow at scales unimaginable, and he knows he’s watching worlds be born. 

It terrifies him. 

But it is also beautiful, and the beauty in fear is all he can ask for.

He grips something random beside him, his hand coming back enclosing a long strand of broken wire he’d removed an indeterminate time ago.

He doesn’t believe in time, anymore. 

As he watches the nebula pass the drifting spaceship, his hands begin to move. And the wire forms an easy shape between his fingers.

* * *

 

_ Tony would have liked to know what had happened to Thor. _

_ Dead, in all likelihood.  _

_ But he hoped not. He would die himself hoping not. _

_ The god would have told Tony all the stories with such ease, with laughter where it was needed and pauses for the most emphasis, and it would have made Tony feel things. He’d always loved Thor’s stories, always been addicted to the catharsis of adventures that for once weren’t his.  _

_ It had been years, hadn’t it? Long years without the laugh of that god who had maybe been, who perhaps was, his friend.  _

_ He would have liked to know what had happened. _

_ He would have served drinks, the most ancient ale his significant funds would buy, and made a day out of it. They would have spoken, they would have drunk, and they wouldn’t have stopped until they couldn’t remember their words anymore. _

_ That’s when Tony would have been told about Loki, he knew. When he would have heard the stories neither of them would be able to recall, when Thor would open that last part of himself and then close it immediately.  _

_ And he wouldn’t remember, but Thor would have spoken. And they’d both have been better, for it.  _

_ Years ago, there’d been another disaster. Tony’d caused it, he’d caused everything. Another disaster, and then Thor’d been gone, the pattern seared into a lawn the only sign remaining.  _

_ Tony had made a joke about it. He hadn’t missed Thor yet, but he’d known he would. He’d spoken in preparation for it, in acceptance of it.  _

_ It was what he always did. _

* * *

 

He has to find a way to veer the ship, on the third pulsar. 

For a moment, though, he just stands there beside the improvised rudder and watches the scales of radiation run higher than he’s ever seen. The pulsar is rotating twelve thousand times a minute, its magnetic field gripping the ship and ever-so-slowly drawing it in. He could let it.

It would be revolutionary, to get that close, to die of its poison. The first man to see the heart of the neutron star before he is devoured by it. 

Why does he always have to be devoured to see the heart? 

Gamma rays flicker their specific wavelengths on the screen. 

He taps his fingers against the steering mechanism and turns his gaze toward the window into the open space. A wire comes off in his hand. The star is burning, is blinding, through the window before him. It’s angry.

He could feed its hunger. It would change nothing. 

But there was a star within him too. A star that had long since supernovaed, but left a neutron within his core, one pulsing to the beat of the universe like the one before him. 

Hope. Dead, stagnant, but hope all the same.

He knocks the spaceship away from the course of the star, and his hands fidget with the wire.

* * *

 

_ Tony would have liked to have explained to Bruce. _

_ The other man might have believed him. And understood.  _

_ Tony would have spoken of the fight. He would have told the story, quick and sharp and precise, and he would have looked at the floor as he did so. His voice would have broken at the end, and he would have hated that. _

_ But Bruce would have understood. _

_ Bruce wouldn’t have assure him he’d have fought with Tony, for him. He wouldn’t promise something he couldn’t prove, the scientist that he was. But he would have understood.  _

_ And maybe he wouldn’t have been the only one. _

_ But they would have spoken in soft tones of impossibilities they had faced, betrayals they had felt, songs they had sung and miracles they had witnessed.  _

_ They would have wished for more miracles.  _

_ And they would have looked at each other and believed, for a fleeting second, like the pulsing of a spinning neutron star, that those miracles might come about. That they could make them come about. _

* * *

 

He begins to fear the days with light more than the days without.

The all-encompassing darkness is comforting. He imagines what it would be like to live within it, and knows that he’ll never know; for once he does, such thoughts will be impossible.

And that does not scare him.

The light does. Those pinpricks between the shadows, aren’t so much beacons as they are flames, as they are eyes. Watching. Reminding.

_ Dead,  _ they whisper. 

He doesn’t know if they mean him. It is equally likely they mean everybody else.

He screams at them, sometimes. Though the unbreakable cage of the ships walls, he pounds and he roars and he demands they tell him, outright and true,  _ why. _ But they are stars, and they give no answers. 

They give no guidance, either. They are the wrong stars. They are alien stars.

Hopeful stars.

He hates this limbo. He wants to know whether he should let his hope die. 

It is so hard to hope. And he is so tired. The darkness is so much easier. For once, can’t something be easy? He wants to sleep, he wants to sigh. He wants to stop thinking and stop remembering. He wants to stop hoping. 

Nothing listens. The stars, the ship, the universe. His own body and mind. And nothing is there to listen. 

He wanders around the ship, touching walls and pulling objects out of drawers. They form a narrative of people he never truly met and words he never truly spoke. Never would. 

The objects are colorful and they make him smile. It feels magical. 

He puts the objects back. 

Paint rubs off a broken suit, all color fading. Black and silver.

He plays with the shavings in one hand and a wire in the other.

* * *

 

_ Tony would have liked to have laughed with Rhodey. _

_ The man’s chuckle was infectious; it never failed to lift him up. Rhodey had no right to smile and every right to twist himself into darkness, but he laughed all the same. _

_ Maybe that’s why it meant so much to Tony, those small moments of pure euphoria that Rhodey somehow managed to share with him. Tony had no right to them, but his friend always shared.  _

_ They would have sat in his workshop, he beneath DUM-E’s arm and Rhodey atop the nearest table, having cleared everything away. Rhodey would have spoken, and laughed, and made Tony laugh. Tony wouldn’t have had to speak, not this time. _

_ It would have been easy. Just the two of them, kids in college, covered in dirt and drunk out of their minds, sleep-deprived and questioning.  _

_ Rhodey had found the answer. _

_ Tony was still looking for it.  _

_ The leg braces would have glinted, clutching and supporting Rhodey’s shins and thighs unhidden atop his pants. Rhodey wasn’t ashamed of them; he wouldn’t apologize for them. He  added them to his chain of darkness and smiled anyway. _

_ They would have laughed together, despite everything. And maybe, things could have been possible. _

_ Maybe hope wouldn’t have been so hard, anymore. _

* * *

 

He knows it’ll only be a week or so more.

The days pass, sometimes dragging, sometimes flashing, and he gives up on referring to them as anything else. 

He’s too hungry and too lonely and too tired to dance around things, anymore.

Days are days. Stars are stars. Dead is dead. All his walls have crumbled, just by the slow and steady onslaught of the waves of time.

Sometimes, he can’t think. Sometimes, he thinks too much. But most of the time, he just remembers. And it hurts, but he’s used to that.

And it’s better than being bored. Pain is far better. Because the pain means something, at least. It reminds him of them, and of the hope he once had. 

He remembers hope.

He breaks things, and he puts them back together. He smashes the waste recycler, just so he’ll have a time limit to work within as he assembles it again. A small semblance of purpose. He cleans the dust from chairs and from sheets of gleaming metal in long streaks, forming words and numbers. Meaningless, all of them. He finds areas in the ship that smell of grease, and he spends whole days there. 

He wastes time.

But time doesn’t exist, anyway. He doesn’t believe in it, and he knows who’s to blame for that.

He sits and inhales the smell of grease and wishes it smelled of home, and he plays with a piece of wire in his hands.

* * *

 

_ Tony would have liked to have known the doctor better. _

_ He was familiar, in a way that had made Tony resent him at first. Strange hid behind walls and lashed out with tongues of wit when anything grew close, and Tony recognized those walls and those tongues, so much like his own. _

_ Had he sat down, had he truly looked at the sorcerer, he would have found similarity was not always a moat. Sometimes, it built bridges. _

_ He would have learned Strange prefer tea over coffee, and he would have called it blasphemy. He would have listed reasons and logic and been refuted by neuroscience, for once losing a passionate argument. He would have found that despite the preference of beverage, Strange never drank from a glass or a teacup. His hands shook too hard to hold it. _

_ Tony would have made him a special mug.  _

_ And Strange would have grinned, and said something snarky as he took the gift with hands shaking from more than just scars, and they’d both have known what he really meant.  _

_ Strange would have learned about Tony’s aversion to portals, and Tony would have discovered Strange’s distaste for cars. Neither would know the whole story. First names would have been shared, anyway.  _

_ They would never have spoken about the things they saw on Titan, the real or the infinite possible. But they would have thought about it, favored personal beverages in hand, together.  _

_ And that would have helped, just a little.  _

_ Just a little meant everything, sometimes. _

* * *

 

He’s wishing too much.

He’s thought about the past. He’s thought about the present. But the future is unreachable, because he can’t think of it. There is nothing to think of. 

His future had already been weeks longer than it had any right to be.

He gets angry. At the stars, at the sand, at the ship. Mostly, he gets angry at himself. He screams sometimes, roaring the same questions he asked the sky to the void within him.

He gets no answer there, either.

There is dust on his hands when he wakes up. There is dust in his throat, and it is young and it is smothering, and it is dead. It tastes like ash.

He draws his fingers across the dust. Skin bunches beneath his nails. He writes words in blood.

He coughs up cinders and fiddles with wire, close to his chest.

* * *

 

_ Tony would have liked to see Peter graduate. _

_ The kid was smart enough to do it years early, Tony knew. He could--would--have been able to do it that semester, if he’d put his mind to it. Such cleverness, such creativity, concentrated into a small form and eyes that looked perpetually to a future no one else could see.  _

_ Scholarships would have sought him out. Possibilities would have nearly chained him, clamoring for his attention, and he would have taken them all. He would have changed the world, he would have saved it. _

_ He would have worn the suit underneath his graduation robes. The tassel of his cap would have fallen in his face as he walked down the aisle, and he would have gone cross-eyed to look at it.  _

_ Tony would have cried.  _

_ May, next to him, would have cried.  _

_ And they’d have stood and applauded as loud as they could and let their tears of pride fall. Peter deserved them. He deserved it all. _

_ Tony would have hugged him, after. He would have taken them all out to dinner; not anything fancy, just a drop-in pizza joint like a normal family, as Peter would have insisted. _

_ They would have paused to stop a mugging on the way back home, and Peter would have laughed at the irony, but he’d never apologize. _

_ Tony would have told Peter he loved him. _

_ And Peter would have looked him in the eye and told him he knew, Dad. He’d known since Titan.  _

_ Everything would have been fine, for that one gorgeous night, and maybe forever. _

* * *

 

“Is this thing on?”

* * *

 

_ Tony would have liked to see her, again. _

* * *

 

“Hey, Ms. Potts. If you find this recording… don’t feel bad about this.”

* * *

 

_ Tony would have liked to get married. He would have liked to marry her. _

* * *

 

“Part of the journey is the end.”

* * *

 

_ Tony loved her. He would have liked for her to know that. He would have liked for their children to know that. _

* * *

 

“Just for the record, being adrift in space with zero promise of rescue is more fun than it sounds.”

* * *

 

_ Tony would have liked to stand next to her again, lace his fingers with hers again. Stand in a coffee shop and bicker in front of the confused barista who held their drinks in either hand somewhat awkwardly. _

* * *

 

“Food and water ran out… four days ago. Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning. And that’ll be it.”

* * *

 

_ Tony would have liked to kiss her again.  _

_ She always tasted of fruit, sweet and tangy, and he everytime he felt her on his tongue, he had the urge to write. He, Tony Stark, writing poetry in the workshop, surrounded by grease and robots and very, very confused. It was never any good, but she was. _

* * *

 

“When I drift off, I will dream about you.”

* * *

 

_ Tony would have liked to beat her at cards, just once.  _

_ She’d never gambled, back when Tony had. She’d just quietly watched, and now, lounging in bed and holding their cards to their chests, she smoked him every time. _

_ He’d act annoyed. But mostly, he just loved it.  _

_ He loved her.  _

_ He would have beaten her someday. And they would have celebrated with coffee, bickering in front of a confused barista, and a kiss that tasted of tangerines. _

* * *

 

_ “It’s always you.” _

* * *

 

Six tiny wire figures lay abandoned on the floor of a spaceship drifting out of time. 

A hammer. A test-tube. A tank. A butterfly. A spider. A heart.

He’ll dream of them.

He’ll dream of them. 

It’s always them. 

  
  
  



End file.
